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Yes, their first victory is getting you to state you are happy in both systems. Stop being a pawn.

You're right, and damn their eyes! I'm going back to bushels and roods and stuff. The back cover of my school exercise books used to be covered with obscure measures and their conversions; bushels, pecks, furlongs, chains, fathoms ... happy days

__________________"Even a broken clock is right twice a day. 9/11 truth is a clock with no hands." - Beachnut

At this juncture, I would like to give a very special shout-out to those most northern of North Americans - those affable Canucks, for finally taking the bull by the horns and bestowing upon the world an object that finally unites metric and imperial measurements.

And so without further adieu, Ladies and Gentlemen, Mesdames et Messieurs ... I give you ...

A grain - "The unit was based on the weight of a single grain of barley, considered equivalent to ​1 1⁄3 grains of wheat. The fundamental unit of the pre-1527 English weight system known as Tower weights, was a different sort of grain known as the "wheat grain". The Tower wheat grain was defined as exactly ​45⁄64 of a troy grain."

So, that's cleared that up then Launch the next Mars mission in grains, but let's all be sure it's the 'Tower wheat grain' 45/64ths ??? wtf

__________________"Even a broken clock is right twice a day. 9/11 truth is a clock with no hands." - Beachnut

At this juncture, I would like to give a very special shout-out to those most northern of North Americans - those affable Canucks, for finally taking the bull by the horns and bestowing upon the world an object that finally unites metric and imperial measurements.

And so without further adieu, Ladies and Gentlemen, Mesdames et Messieurs ... I give you ...

Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and some other members of the Commonwealth of Nations—being former British colonies that have since metricated—employ a "metric cup" of 250 millilitres.[5] Although derived from the metric system, it is not an SI unit.[6]

I wish the US would have followed through with the conversion to metric in the '70s.

Trouble is that unlike pretty much the rest of the world, the US made it optional to change and not mandatory, so no one did.

Originally Posted by Trebuchet

A British ex-pat co-worker taught me a neat trick for C to F: Double it. Subtract 10%. Add 32. That's actually exactly correct. The other direction is a bit more complicated.

C -> F is 1.8C + 32
F -> C is( F - 32)/1.8

__________________It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. -- JayUtahI am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. -- Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

As an engineer in the US, we have to work with both Imperial and SI units. We have several suppliers in the US that will use Imperial units for fabrication drawings, and then our customers are mostly international and require interface dimensions in SI. Certainly, the metric system is much easier to use and requires less rote memorization for conversion. Crossbow's method above is correct and how I deal with the units.

There are 12 inches in a foot, three feet in a yard, 5280 feet in a mile. It's not the most useful system. Then you get into pound force and pound mass, the use of slugs (which most Americans are not even aware of). I wish the US would have followed through with the conversion to metric in the '70s.

Studying engineering in Australia years ago the units we used were a complete mess. In one subject we used pound force and hence slugs for mass and in another subject pounds mass and poundals for force.

I was so pleased to see the change to metric and embraced this system of units completely. It is so logical and easy to use compared to the imperial stuff.

Sometimes when confronted with a reactionary imperial unit user I start giving measurements in cubits.

Shoe sizes are in barleycorns. One barleycorn is a third of an inch. They obfuscate it a bit by not starting at zero and having different starting points for men's and women's shoes - but it's still barleycorns.

Thanks again, is that a common method and is it common historically?
And are there measuring instruments (rulers tapes micrometers etc) that measure decimal feet?

Surveyors (in the U.S.) routinely use tapes and grade rods that measure in decimal feet. Site drawings (as opposed to structural and architectural drawings) also generally give measurements and elevations in decimal feet.

I was sent to one (of company I was working for at the time) project to transfer and install some elevation benchmarks around the jobsite. The helper they gave me brought out ... unbeknownst to me ... a grade rod marked in feet and inches. I hadn't ever seen one before. They must have special ordered it for some superintendent who couldn't work in decimal feet without a calculator. (It's actually easy to convert in your head to two significant decimal places, and that is generally good enough in the field. The instruments being used are rarely more accurate than that.)

When looked at through an instrument at a couple of hundred feet they don't necessarily stand out as different ... until you realize that you are reading something at eleven tenths of a foot.

Fortunately I caught it before I had a lot of work to do over.

After that I insisted on having all of my own equipment to carry from job to job, and refused to use anything that happened to be on-site when I got there unless I took the time to check and calibrate it myself.

__________________"It never does just what I want, but only what I tell it."
"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."

Studying engineering in Australia years ago the units we used were a complete mess. In one subject we used pound force and hence slugs for mass and in another subject pounds mass and poundals for force.

Same as when I studied it in the USA. Of course, you sometimes have to use that 9.8 factor in the Metric world.

Originally Posted by BowlOfRed

Double it and add 30.

Not precise. Mine is.

Some metric enthusiasts proudly point out that they use mass instead of volume when measuring out cooking products. Except they aren't. They're using weight. On the moon, my cup of flour will still be a cup of flour. Your 60 grams of sugar will be 10. Unless you use a balance scale, of course.

Shoe sizes are in barleycorns. One barleycorn is a third of an inch. They obfuscate it a bit by not starting at zero and having different starting points for men's and women's shoes - but it's still barleycorns.

To be fair, Euro (Continental) shoe sizes are in stitch lengths - very non SI!

Sometimes when confronted with a reactionary imperial unit user I start giving measurements in cubits.

Which cubits?

There is a little book calledPocket Reference by Thomas Glover which packs more reference material, conversions, and formulas for more different things than just about any other paper product you can hold in one hand. Everything from electrical formulas and area codes to angles of repose for just about any granular material you can think of, to units of measurement you've never even had nightmares about. (Don't ask. ) Back before smart phones and the Internet it was the sort of thing you didn't know you needed ... until you did.

It is (was?) often found stacked next to the cash register in survey equipment shops. So of course I had to get one.

I once looked up cubits just for the heck of it. Somewhat to my surprise I found at least twenty different ones listed, with lengths varying from around fourteen inches to over twenty two.

You'll need to be moar specifical.

__________________"It never does just what I want, but only what I tell it."
"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."

Wiki: the European and Australian standard large bottle is 750-milliliter (25.4*U.S.*fl*oz; 26.4*imp*fl*oz). In South Africa and Canada they are referred to as a "quart";

In pre-metric days, the standard beer bottle size was 26 oz (738.738 mL). When Australia went metric the size was increased slightly to 750 mL so that the breweries could sell more beer.

There is a parallel in the milk industry. The marketers weren't prepared to sell milk by the half-litre since that could mean that people who previously bought milk by the pint (568.26 mL) might decrease their milk consumption accordingly. So the new milk bottle size became 600 ML.

BTW 26 oz is not a "quart"er of anything. However, by calling it a "quart" if gives the buyer the impression that they are buying a quarter of a gallon of beer (even though 1/4 of a gallon is actually 40 oz). It's the same reason why in many states, a 15 oz beer glass is referred to as a "pint" (even though 1 pint = 20 oz).

__________________"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975

In pre-metric days, the standard beer bottle size was 26 oz (738.738 mL). When Australia went metric the size was increased slightly to 750 mL so that the breweries could sell more beer.

There is a parallel in the milk industry. The marketers weren't prepared to sell milk by the half-litre since that could mean that people who previously bought milk by the pint (568.26 mL) might decrease their milk consumption accordingly. So the new milk bottle size became 600 ML.

BTW 26 oz is not a "quart"er of anything. However, by calling it a "quart" if gives the buyer the impression that they are buying a quarter of a gallon of beer (even though 1/4 of a gallon is actually 40 oz). It's the same reason why in many states, a 15 oz beer glass is referred to as a "pint" (even though 1 pint = 20 oz).

Many US bars will serve beers using an 'English Pint' of ≈ 568 mL, which is not a proper pint measure in America. 25.6 oz is, in fact, 1/5 of a gallon, commonly called a fifth in America (for apparently unknowable reasons).

ETA: I did, in fact, once see a bar that advertised "The Biggest Pints in Town". It was pretty effective. Because after that, I really needed a drink.

__________________Knowing that we do not know, it does not necessarily follow that we can not know.

Many US bars will serve beers using an 'English Pint' of ≈ 568 mL, which is not a proper pint measure in America. 25.6 oz is, in fact, 1/5 of a gallon, commonly called a fifth in America (for apparently unknowable reasons).

Which.....................................
There is a little book calledPocket Reference by Thomas Glover which packs more reference material, conversions, and formulas for more different things than just about any other paper product you can hold in one hand. Everything from electrical formulas and area codes to angles of repose for just about any granular material you can think of, to units of measurement you've never even had nightmares about. (Don't ask. ) Back before smart phones and the Internet it was the sort of thing you didn't know you needed ... until you did.
..................................................

I have another reference book by Thomas J. Glover and Richard A, Young.
It's pocket size but 864 pages long and very small print.
"Measure for Measure" 2002

__________________"It never does just what I want, but only what I tell it."
"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."

I mean I can't image that compared to say translating a language which has thousands of words and things like inflection and nuance and stuff can easily get "lost in translation" (and with extremely disparate languages you could imagine can never be 100% perfectly translated) or even things like time zones and which side of the street the car is designed for or any one of take your pick out of hundreds upon thousands of regional and country variations in standards and standardization really a thing?

If you're a American doing business with... Japan (or vice versa) is a simple, even automated math equation to change Kilometers or Miles really even a drop in the bucket compared to having to the entirely different linguistic root, alphabet, sentence structure, grammar and so forth language to the other?

At least with Metric/Imperial and Imperial/Metric you have a hard and fast mathematical way to convert the objective data with no loss of... fidelity or detail or nuance or context something that can't be said for translating almost any other

In a world where there... what a good several dozen "international" languages and countless languages in some level of common use, hundreds of different organizations trying to enforce various "official" standards on everything from traffic to how to make a cup of tea is the 4.4 percent of the global population that uses a, admittedly nonsensical, measurement system really causing that much of a problem?

I hate the Imperial system and do think America should go metric, but trying to paint this as America being some sort of amazingly weird outlier that's causing all these problems seems a bit much.

__________________"Ernest Hemingway once wrote that the world is a fine place and worth fighting for. I agree with the second part." - Detective Sommerset, Se7en

"Stupidity does not cancel out stupidity to yield genius. It breeds like a bucket-full of coked out hamsters." - The Oatmeal

I mean I can't image that compared to say translating a language which has thousands of words and things like inflection and nuance and stuff can easily get "lost in translation" (and with extremely disparate languages you could imagine can never be 100% perfectly translated) or even things like time zones and which side of the street the car is designed for or any one of take your pick out of hundreds upon thousands of regional and country variations in standards and standardization really a thing?

If you're a American doing business with... Japan (or vice versa) is a simple, even automated math equation to change Kilometers or Miles really even a drop in the bucket compared to having to the entirely different linguistic root, alphabet, sentence structure, grammar and so forth language to the other?

At least with Metric/Imperial and Imperial/Metric you have a hard and fast mathematical way to convert the objective data with no loss of... fidelity or detail or nuance or context something that can't be said for translating almost any other

In a world where there... what a good several dozen "international" languages and countless languages in some level of common use, hundreds of different organizations trying to enforce various "official" standards on everything from traffic to how to make a cup of tea is the 4.4 percent of the global population that uses a, admittedly nonsensical, measurement system really causing that much of a problem?

I hate the Imperial system and do think America should go metric, but trying to paint this as America being some sort of amazingly weird outlier that's causing all these problems seems a bit much.

It is a serious problem. For example The Mars Climate OrbiterWP failed due to this issue.

It is a serious problem. For example The Mars Climate OrbiterWP failed due to this issue.

And then there's Canada's version of the "Miracle on the Hudson". The strange story of the Gimli Glider.

__________________"It never does just what I want, but only what I tell it."
"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."

Hex requires new number digits. Using alpha characters would confuse the public. For octal, we just need to teach people that thumbs are not fingers. Or amputate the pinky from every newborn for a couple of generations. It's only useful for extending when you hold a teacup anyway.

The one "Imperial" measure I strongly prefer is Fahrenheit. The range of zero to 100 nicely approximates the normal range of temperatures in temperate climes. And the gradations in Celsius are too coarse. Anyhow, Celsius himself wanted zero to be hot and 100 cold.

Nonsense. We just use numbers after the decimal point.

__________________i loves the little birdies they goes tweet tweet tweet hee hee i loves them they sings to each other tweet twet tweet hee hee i loves them they is so cute i love yje little birdies little birdies in the room when birfies sings ther is no gloom i lobes the little birdies they goess tweet tweet tweet hee hee hee i loves them they sings me to sleep sing me to slrrp now little birdies - The wisdom of Shemp.

BTW 26 oz is not a "quart"er of anything. However, by calling it a "quart" if gives the buyer the impression that they are buying a quarter of a gallon of beer (even though 1/4 of a gallon is actually 40 oz).

That's what I find interesting. We've always had metric, so buying a quarter of a gallon wouldn't make sense here because no one knows what a gallon is.

I've actually always thought it was a quart be cause it was three quarters of a litre....

One quarter of a litre (250 mL or 8.3 oz which is the dieter's size) does not sound as exciting as one quarter of a gallon (even if you don't know what a gallon is).

3/4 = 1/4. Hmm. It's not as silly as some of the ways that I have seen to spin measurements.

Everyone knows that 250ml (1/4 litre ) is a cup. It's not exciting at all - no one could see a quart of beer and think, "that looks like a cup of beer". You look at it and say holy ****, that's a big bottle of beer! I just never ever made the connection that it might be considered a quarter gallon. 750 ml is three "quart"ers of a litre!

It all makes sense to me... but then I'm long on bitcoin, so I may be a moron.

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